In Beautiful Dreams
by AmethystB
Summary: Between simulations, she dreams.


**In Beautiful Dreams**

by AmethystB

* * *

Sleep comes. She tries to fight it but the stimulation fades, neurons hiding in a blanket of oblivion. Everything's gone. Fingers numb, hands shaking beside her. Those hands once perfect for surgery—hands that could tear mere shreds off damaged hearts—now torn, ripped. Ruined.

She feels fingers circling, entwining. She's pulled closer to something, _someone._

In bed, naked and vulnerable (hardly). Being held, facing darkness.

"I'm here. Talk to me."

She has nothing to say. Nothing can mean anything. She's lost, gone. How do you say that?

"I don't know how to do this."

Fingertips run along her bare back, a reassurance. Steady hands take control.

"You'll learn."

* * *

Electricity runs through her, shocks her. Torture, she knows, because she's hurt others like this. It's not like a taser—that she knows well—but a fucking lightning bolt. Every nerve stands on end, convulses and expands.

Martine says something.

Electricity.

She fades. Back with ISA she had more tenacity, more endurance. She could withstand forms of torture more severe than this, but now it's almost a moot point. She passes out, unwilling.

Electricity passes between them; their fingers touch, a rarity, but it's enough.

Lightning.

Her lips tingle, hands searching. It's a maze, their clothes, but they negotiate a path and it isn't long before skin touches skin.

She's met with a smile: "I thought you'd never make it."

And lightning brings her back.

She wakes.

* * *

The third dream begins after a needle pricks her skin, searches deep within her blood.

They're kissing, desperate like it means something. A table loses its legs, splinters troubling skin but it doesn't matter so much. In the ruins their love burns like fire.

She needs more. Needs consumption. Asks for it.

"You'll be gone. I can't live with that."

But it feels simpler. Easier. It's what she's used to.

"No."

This woman won't let go. She doesn't know why.

She pleads.

"No."

They kiss. The whole world burns.

* * *

The forth night ends as it begins.

She dies.

Fire consumes her world, a psychedelic window of flames.

There's only so much left in her world but what remains is slowly torn apart. Piece after piece, flesh removed from bone. It captures an air of despair, of desolation. Of nothing.

She's naked, longing. Lips gliding along her collarbone, ribcage, pelvis. Kisses track bones, enticing desired reactions. But there's a darkness present, uninvited. Unshakeable.

"Do you feel that?" she asks, unknowingly.

"What?"

She feels the vibrations of her voice in her bones.

"Darkness."

She's dismissed with lips reaching a sacred place, her mind now devoid of any thought.

* * *

The fifth, a voice.

"STOP."

She doesn't know its meaning. Doesn't know the question, and cannot fathom the answers.

Martine presses the UP measure on the ketamine.

"There you are," she croons, aware of the pain.

"Fuck you…"

"You'd probably like it but that's not why I'm here."

Root passes through her thoughts. _Root..._

"How do I kill her?"

She doesn't want to, doesn't mean to. Eyelids shutter, darkness comes.

She can barely say the words. Any thought has passed her by, forgotten. Arousal pinpoints an extreme post within her, a guttural exposure no one can know.

Root's hands explore, like only hers can. Pleasure escapes but she wants to recapture it, like it was never meant to be set free. A shudder electrifies her body, incarnate. She lets go, dispels the advice of an encompassing voice.

There's suddenly a gun. A tug on the trigger is familiar.

* * *

Perhaps a nightmare kills fear. After all, nightmares aren't real.

Their body heat is familiar, beautiful. Safe.

Alone, they breathe each other. One and the same.

It's after everything they find each other again. A strange reunion.

This is her dreaming, she knows, but that doesn't make it any less real.

Is this is a dream or a nightmare?

She is forced to wake, Martine's dark eyes waiting.

"Thanks," she says simply.

She wonders why.

Then she knows.

* * *

She dreams, dreams until it cannot ever be real.

The first time it happens she doesn't know it isn't real.

She escapes, guns shooting fire from their mouths, a safe haven filled with false prophets.

A safe body, bodies encapsulated in exalted ecstasy, a determined symphony.

A gun pressed to her head, her gun. She fires and it's all over.

It begins again.

She dreams, determined. If she cannot escape reality, she'll dream one up instead.


End file.
